Making A Difference

Vis-A(-Vis) Matrimony

The UK may stop spouse-imports and convenient marriages

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Vis-A(-Vis) Matrimony
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Nilesh rents about 10 houses in Wembley in north London, each packed with a dozen students. They're studying, yes, but what matters is that they're staying. "When they have finished one course, there are always more to take," Nilesh says. And, after that? "Are they such fools that no one will want to marry them in years?" Nilesh has just held a singles party where the tenants were among the guests. Their marriage is his business. He declines to say how much, but it doesn't look like it's little.

It isn't just students. A growing number of visitors from India and Pakistan have miraculously begun to find partners in Britain. In 1999, 76 per cent of those given leave to remain in Britain on the basis of marriage had entered the country for another purpose. The home office is calling these "switch marriages". Half of these took place within six months of arrival in Britain; six months is also the duration of a visitor's visa. Marriage and migration are indeed becoming one again.

To add to these "switch" marriages, more than 38,000 people were granted the right to live in Britain through marriage in 2000. There were almost 18,000 visas granted to spouses from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan—more than double the number in 1996.

The home office has now launched consultations on a "no switching" policy to stop marriages that have little to do with marriage. Says home secretary David Blunkett: "Fraudulent marriages are a growing problem in our immigration system. So, we need to get tough and follow up reports of abuse with enforcement action."

The new proposals will "make it more difficult for those who come into this country and enter into a sham marriage". Currently, all that anyone in Britain has to do to import a spouse is to show they have an income and a place for the arriving spouse. A letter a year later to say they're still together and that's it. Blunkett is now making that two years. For, that should test the genuineness of a marriage, better.

Labour is moving now to do what it had undone. Within months of coming to power in 1997, Tony Blair's government kept its promise of scrapping the Primary Purpose Rule that the Tories had maintained in the face of strong Labour opposition. That rule placed the onus on spouses outside the UK to prove that they were looking to join their partners in Britain for the sake of marriage and not for the sake of migration. It's not called the Primary Purpose Rule now, but the British are looking at primary purpose again.

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